International travelers are facing the problem of non-compatible electrical plugs and receptacles. A user of an electric appliance often visits a country, which adopts different plug configuration from the country where the appliance was initially purchased. Usually, the traveler resorts to using an adaptor plug to allow fitting the appliance's plug into the new country's wall receptacles.
In case a suitable adaptor is available, the use of an adaptor adds more contact points to the power link and protrudes further from the wall socket causing its contacts to get looser and making it more susceptible for tripping. Further, many of the adaptors receive plugs from a particular country only and therefore at many occasions the user needs to use a plurality of adapters attached to each other to obtain appropriate plug pin for his appliance. This results in a chain of adapters protruding out from the wall socket having a very loose contact with each other, thereby increasing the probability of tripping.
In the United States, the standards for electrical installation is the National Electrical Code® (NEC®) which is based on NFPA-70 published by the National Fire Protection Association. Accordingly, all wiring methods and material are standardized in compliance with NEMA (National Electrical Manufacturers Association) and UL (Underwriters Laboratories Inc.) standards.
Various attempts have been made in the past to overcome the problem faced by international travelers in fitting their appliances in the wall receptacle. However, the focus has been on use of adaptors such as the adaptor disclosed in U.S. Pat. No. 6,994,592 issued to GANNON.
U.S. Pat. No. 6,010,347 for “Universal electric socket” issued to Lee discloses another such arrangement. In Lee '347, a universal electric socket is provided for test purpose which can be used with different electric plugs. However, the arrangement focuses on prohibiting a high voltage short circuit between the positive terminal and the negative terminal and does not overcome the problem of fitting different appliances having different plug pin arrangements in the wall receptacle.
The problem to be solved is to allow fitting of different appliances having different plug pin arrangements in a wall receptacle and the problem is solved by providing an electrical receptacle configured to fit and mount into an outlet box and having a front panel configured to receive different internationally standardized plug pin arrangements.